The award-winning cinematographer and director of TRINIDAD, a film profiling a quiet Colorado town that has become a center for sex reassignment surgery, turns his camera on the lives of LGBT seniors.

Noting the specific challenges faced by LGBT seniors, including reduced access to healthcare, increased solitude, and, for some, either late-in-life coming out, or, for others, a forced return to the closet, director PJ Raval has set out to document their lives around America. Interweaving interviews with archival footage, the film explores their past and present, and the way that age is addressed within the gay community.

With just a week and a half left in Raval’s USA Projects campaign, there’s a little over 25% of the $10,000 goal left to raise. Like Kickstarter, USA Projects campaigns are all-or-nothing – if the goal is not met, Raval will not receive the funding raised to date – so if you’re interested, please consider supporting the project now.

While there have been a couple of documentaries about LGBT elders in the past, there’s definitely a need for more voices to be heard. As Raval notes in his campaign video, while society as a whole is youth-obsessed, the LGBT community – and gay males in particular – are perceived to take it to the extreme. Adding to this is the loss of an entire generation of gay men to AIDS, resulting in a disconnect between younger and older men that has persisted to the present. A documentary like this helps to remind us all that just because we don’t usually see older LGBT people at our usual haunts, our elders are out there, and we can learn a lot from them. After all, barring accident or disease, we’ll all be in their shoes one day.